Rae Town Rock

So we roll out from the studio, Sunday night, around midnight: Andrea, a friend of Andrea's in a camo minidress and long blond dreads, a younger woman T (daughter of one of the gentlemen hanging in the studio), Earl Chinna Smith, whose studio we've been hanging out in all evening, a visiting musician from the US, Berklee-trained, who’s working with them on an album, and a few other venerable cats.

Taking a circuitous route through downtown to the highway (following Chinna's car, the women exclaim this route makes no sense, both because traffic in the city is no problem at 11:45pm on a Sunday, and because this takes us near downtown during election season, when the chance for politics-related violence is high), we come to Rae Town, definitely not New Kingston. Small houses and shacks, gullies for drainage, but also a good sized crowd. Andrea says this is small, but it's perhaps 800 people maybe, or gets there in the next hour or so.

Towers of speakers line the back of the sidewalk at key points, and people stand in front of the speakers but with their backs to them. This means there are two thick rows of people facing each other across the street, being blasted in the face and back by speakers playing oldies, "vintage" music. Which in this case means everything from funk (I think "last night a dj saved my life" was playing as we pulled in), to rocksteady (to which everyone sings along, Alton Ellis crooning over the crowd).

We park in a lot at one end, and walk back towards the crowd, collecting at one end. I am already dizzy with sensory overload. The crowd ranges from teenagers to people in the 70s. Clothing styles are wide-ranging but definitely have not much upper limit on the flashy side, from tight jeans with golden zippers hanging off and high heels, to halter tops, mini skirts, leggings, men strut in near-zoot-suits (with a fedora in one case), or rocking the look more popular uptown: the slim-cut button-down shirt with embroidery (gothic letters or eagles or other crests), plus white shirts and vests, enormous dreadlock crowns.

I should point out that tonight at Rae Town age does not appear to dictate style – either in flashiness or sexuality (although tight and revealing clothes appear on women only here) the first women I notice are a woman in her 50s wearing a crocheted outfit that is like long trousers that are only opaque in the hotpant region, and then become see-through crochet for the entire legs, a black crochet top that is equally revealing, a black bra and red men's suspenders hoisting the pants up. Her friend has a black one-piece outfit that is a bra top attached to the pants part by a sort of fishnet, stretched over her round belly. I turn around and there is my guide talking to Errol Dunkley, who is magnificent in a white satin buttondown shirt with a Chinese-style collar, clipped at the throat with a thick golden chain, a more enormous golden chain hanging around his neck over a black pinstripe vest, a matching one on his wrist and a huge seal ring on his finger.

The age range is striking compared to the other places we've been out. A nice thing about the scene is the number of older people dancing enthusiastically –something I rarely see in the US (both because we are so age-segregated in terms of nightlife, but also I think dancing is not assumed to be so usual here). I'm particularly taken with the older men with dreadlocks piled high and beards, standing and wining, eyes shut, bending their knees and rocking out to the beat. Across the street from me when I first arrive, is one such man, hair wrapped in a white turban, white buttondown shirt under a blue knit v-neck vest, white beard glowing in the reflected car lights.

I'm the only white person there, and I don't see any asian folk either (Christina and I had been talked earlier on the visible presence of Chinese folks all over Kingston), although later a crew of 3 japanese girls and a guy walk through, the girls are dressed to death –I think one of them might be one who won a dancehall queen competition here a while ago – Junko. Long bleach hair, skinny skinny. I hear other folks say that name, and from what I've seen I can believe it would be her. Then again, all that external stuff is pretty movable/changeable, and I can guess any blond skinny asian girl gets called Junko here.. Anyway, she and her female friend disappear, although I see the guy walk back and forth through the crowd a few times.

There are things for sale all along the street behind the crowd - mostly food, drum chicken (steel drums cut in half lengthwise and turned sideways into a barbecue pit), rickety tables piled high with drinks, or coolers full of ice and drinks. Small rum shops/bars are open as well, along the sidewalk - just a bar and a few stools and a chair or two in teh corner. People selling nuts walk back and forth with huge bundles of small plastic bags, or pile the bundles on their heads. Some of the drinks sellers also sell cigarettes and candy, and there is at least one little shop selling candy and cigarettes and other small things I can't make out.

Cars cluster at both ends, although there are a few parked within or behind the crowd. Occasionally someone drives down the street, the crowd parts sulkily for them, people push back a bit but make a point of not moving quickly or too much for the cars. The most common drive-through is the cops, in a really beat up looking Toyota. There are three of them crammed in there in blue suits, toting old m-16s. T tells me it's just a "routine check" when they get out of the car near where we stand, slinging their guns around. we step across the street to the rum shop, I peek over my shoulder but I don't want to stare and I can;t tell what they are doing but nobody is moving quickly. T says they are checking for drugs. But later they drive through again, and a young guy with scraggly cornrows terminating in a kind of mini-fountain at the top of his head, who's been striding around with a kinda scraggly set of branches of weed, is walking past them. He talks to them through the window and I think I see a hand go in. Anyway he walks on and they drive past.

Most of the cars driving through and parked are beat-up, older models, although occasionally a newer one in better shape comes through. The most dramatic car is a big white and silver one that comes at us through the crowd around 1:30 in the morning.. it looks like a big SUV of some kind but there's something on the hood, where the leaping jaguar would be a on a jag. It's a golden lion, sitting majestic and metallic on the hood. I peer past it and through the tinted windshield is an older dready man in a huge white tam with the red-gold-green stripe in the front, and I realize it's Bunny Wailer. When he comes out his clothing is a vision in white and cream – kind of a colonial look actually, except for the tam. The woman with him has a black dress with a gold mesh underskirt and a tall headdress with a sort of gypsy-like gold coin chainmail thingy hanging over her forehead. There's a few other folks but I don't want to stare. They hang out a bit beyond us away from the biggest part of the crowd.

This happens as we stand in the middle of the crowd. People mostly dance solo in these two groups facing each other across the street. There isn't (at least until I leave at 3am) much of the grinding and hot+heavy pair dancing that I've seen in the clubs. People groove and sing along, the sense is of a broader camaraderie through the music, rather than one-on-one attention or performance for watching eyes. I don't notice a lot of pairing off or flirtation in general – people seem either en masse or in same-sex groups mostly. There are watching eyes with respect to me, a bit, although people say less to me (in the way of "whitey, white girl, hiss hiss") than almost any public place I've been since I got here. But of course I still stand out. Older folks seem less interested in me, overall. It may also be that I'm escorted by people who are clearly jamaican, and that could be what keeps the commentary down.

Near the end of the evening, when we're in the middle of the crowd in front of a mountain of speakers, I'm happy I know the lyrics to a lot of the sweet rocksteady, thanks especially to my weekly rocksteady gig back home at the Guerilla café, I had time to brush up. It's a pleasure to dance and sing along, during which I occasionally stop thinking of observing and just enjoy the music, but that feeling is rare. And there's also the nice feeling of surprising people –they notice when I carol along.